Apollo's Creation Story Summary

Apollo's birth story begins immediately with a sense of the son of Zeus and Leto's immense power. The earth is literally scared to let Apollo be born -- and thus it will not allow Leto to lay down and give birth. The earth fears that Apollo, born with power as great or nearly as great as Zeus himself, will be disgusted by the earth and destroy it. However, when Leto is finally allowed to give birth to Apollo on the island of Delos, Apollo does not destroy the earth. He does, however, immediately grow up into a full grown man. Though without a beard, Apollo is still a grown man with incredible prowess. He takes up his symbols and assumes his place as the god of the sun, civilization, justice, and order much like his father. It should also be
This lesser deity gives birth to Hermes in a cave. This association with the cave becomes a kind of shame for Hermes as he wishes to become a fully recognized God and Olympian, and an association with cthonic forces is more akin to the older, defeated Gods of the previous ages. Hermes is born in the form of a baby and remains in this form for some time. He captures Apollo's cattle (thus later making him the patron God of thieves) and ingeniously leads them away to perform a mock sacrifice. Here we see that Hermes is obviously not as powerful as Apollo, or at least not as powerful as Apollo in the physical / divine powers sense. Hermes, still a baby, must use his mental capacity and craftiness to win honor and divine status, and thus, he steals from his half brother Apollo. Furthermore, his attempt to sacrifice manifestly shows his desire to obtain honor in the form of sacrificial worship. Hermes was born an unestablished God. His origin story provides an interesting glimpse into how the Greeks conceived of the role of craftiness and cunning. Thus, the God of such capacities, uses these powers to win divine status among the Olympians -- revealing the power of such a